


cold bones (where's my love?)

by theholyjuggernaut



Category: One Piece
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Aromantic Asexual Monkey D. Luffy, Branding, Gen, Guilt, Hostage Situations, Hurt Monkey D. Luffy, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Mentions of Ace's death, Nakamaship, Near Death, Non-Explicit Rape/Non-Con, Past Character Death, Post-Time Skip, Post-Whole Cake Island, Protective Vinsmoke Sanji, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Sacrifice, Slavery, Starvation, Tenryuubito | Celestial Dragons | World Nobles, The Holy Land Mariejois
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25796236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theholyjuggernaut/pseuds/theholyjuggernaut
Summary: Instantly, he sees how his captain–rapidly, messily–tries to pull the loose strings of a facade together, blinking away the pain and humiliation like a speck of dust in his eye. As if he’s not within an inch of his life.“Don’t,” Sanji chides, startling himself.He quickly gulps down a dry lump in his throat. “Don’t do that to yourself.”-Sanji and Luffy are captured by slave traders, and that's not the worst part.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 56
Kudos: 142





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Where’s My Love by SYML.

It’s been a week, Sanji notes. 

Seven days in a cold, dark prison, with the same dull ache rooted in his bones. 

It contrasts starkly against the familiar soreness after a skirmish with the Marines. On those days, the entire crew retires to the Sunny Go for painkillers and a good night’s rest. The mellow slosh of waves against the ship’s hull soothes Sanji to sleep, and in six hours or so, gently rouses him to prepare breakfast. Domestic sounds are everywhere; the whir of the coffee maker, a whistling kettle, the fiery crackle of the stove. A pleasant aroma mixes with the steam in the room, curling Sanji’s saffron locks of hair at the tips. The door creaks open, and he offers a polite greeting without turning his body. 

At the kitchen table, Robin-chan caresses the pages of her book as she reads; soft crinkles of paper following intermittent sighs of contentment. Nami-san and Usopp arrive next, less loquacious in the early morning. Sanji delivers them tea; hibiscus and oolong. A small _Thanks_ , and a smile from both. A few minutes later, Zoro descends from the crow’s nest, tending to his katanas as the cook strides across the kitchen. The swordsman lifts a sharp eyebrow when Sanji silently plops a bottle of sake in his lap, and doesn’t miss the amused huff directed his way. After another hour or so, the rest of the Straw Hats arise. Franky and Brook clamor into the scene, metallic and musical. Chopper and Luffy have already begun clowning around with the others, their laughter echoing through the recesses of Sanji’s mind, and he tethers himself to the distant memory like a ship to the harbor. 

How easily he forgets. 

The immalleable silence inside his cell fills with Sanji’s hatred for it; gnawing helplessness, which used to be green and unripened, now lingers on his tongue, spoiled and sour. The cook now recognizes that he took the monotonous sound of the sea and the voices of his crewmates for granted. There’s nothing to distract him from the rushes of anxiety that befall in the dim lamplight. He misses his nakama. He misses cooking for his nakama. They could be famished, nearing the point of starvation like himself. 

After all, he and Luffy have been. 

Two hours upon their capture, a hiemal realization struck Sanji that perhaps, this time, they’ve gone in too deep. The cook prays _this_ is their rock bottom, because anything worse would be his captain’s body rotting on the musty prison floor. And what a sight that is in Sanji’s nightmares, when he’s actually able to sleep. It was quickly revealed that the situation they were forced in was not passing maliciousness or something they simply had the misfortune of encountering. _Wrong place, wrong time,_ Sanji might have settled, if all of it weren’t so calculated. How to quickly and efficiently use the Straw Hats against each other; how to wield them like a sword, a sword to fall on. 

The only tether Sanji has to his perception of time is the evenings, when his delirious captain is dragged across the floor to another room. It’s like broken clockwork, sometimes early, sometimes late, but still the only consistent thing that’s been happening each day. Sanji wishes he could watch the sunset like he does on the Sunny Go, to find anything resembling comfort in his rotten, impenetrable cell. The loneliness surges higher each day, even with his captain close-by.

Luffy barely speaks. Not to his captors, and only in small doses to Sanji. After seven days of torture, he isn’t sure his captain even has the strength left to talk. When Sanji furiously demanded to know what happened in that room on the first day, Luffy shut down completely. The only response extruded was a cold and detached _Nothing_ that cut deeper than he’ll ever admit. 

_He doesn’t want to tell me. Doesn’t Luffy trust me?_

A stronger, wiser part of him answers, _Of course he does._

When the cook instinctually pats his pockets for a pack, there is a frustrating amount of nothing. His ribs ache, or maybe it’s just his stomach concaving. The hunger–bordering on starvation–stirs a harrowing memory. Zeff. The rocky islet. And the slow metamorphosis of determined patience to violent desperation. Sanji, now for that reason, needs a smoke. 

His head jerks up at the scrape of metal, the door thundering open as Luffy emerges for the second time today. Around his wrists are a thick pair of Kairoseki handcuffs, too heavy for the raven to support without his full strength. He’s shoved to the floor when he tries to lift himself onto his feet. A stranger anchors a hand in Luffy’s hair and exchanges vulgar remarks with his comrade. Sanji still doesn’t know who they are. He can’t remember anything leading up to this dank, slummy jail cell. Neither can Luffy, by the looks of it. His eyes are glazed and cloudy, brimming with pain and confusion. 

Sanji wonders if they drugged him. A part of him already knows. 

Luffy is thrown into the cell across from his cook, body angled awkwardly as he crumples to the ground. Sanji squints through the darkness for signs of movement and firmly calls out his captain’s name. It would do no justice to say this feels wrong, the way Luffy isn’t responding, how his chest rises midway like his ribs are broken, because the entire situation is more _wrong_ than Sanji wants to comprehend. Fragments of his captain are crumbling away with every rebound through those doors. He doesn’t want to see Luffy like this. 

_Take me instead! Oi, are you listening? Take me instead of him!_

Sanji considers roaring through the prison just like he’s done the last six days. No one listens to him. Not a single eye bats his way. Luffy has been too exhausted to tell him to stop, even though the cook can see it in his face. This time, he bites his tongue for his captain, who’s trembling and feverish and out of reach, because the damage has been dealt already. He’d be a fool to think his captors will change their minds now. 

The prison may be run down, but it’s frustratingly sturdy. Sanji has spent hours kicking at the steel walls and iron bars, using every bit of strength he can on an empty stomach. Their cells must be underground, considering the lack of sunlight and pungent smell of dirt, so there’s no hope of Chopper tracking them. And there’s no one to coerce or con into helping Sanji, since he’s ignored like the plague. Either his reputation among the Straw Hats isn’t being taken lightly, or his captors are actually very perceptive people capable of sniffing out ulterior motives. 

The cook glares at the ceiling. His stomach growls. Chest aches. In the darkness, he tries to envisage his crewmates’ faces; the curves of a jaw, the line of a scar. Herbs, dirt, and tabasco. Tangerines, sake, paper. A sakura petal. The hiss of a bottle cap. Harmonies of notes; spiccato, vibrato, ricochet. A captain who always smells like the sea even if he’s nowhere near it, smiles like the sun in the darkness, and loves adventure and Sanji’s cooking. 

That leads the blond to himself, a topic he consistently avoids in the presence of his crew. Sanji, chained in a prison that reeks of inadequacy, feeling more alone than he truly is. It doesn’t help that Luffy is marching through this hellfire alongside him, somehow taking all the damage. He trains a lidded eye on his captain’s still form. It’s a habit all the Straw Hats are familiar with, but now, it’s the fear that makes it impossible for the cook to divert his gaze. 

Luffy’s going to die if this continues. Sanji hasn’t felt this tense since hearing about Marineford; instances like these remind him that his captain isn’t an invincible force. No matter how extraordinarily divided Luffy seems to be from other humans, Sanji clings to the truth of mortality. Wounds bleed. Punches bruise. Diseases kill. And Luffy is not exempt from any of those things in this life, just as he is not immune from trauma. 

Sanji remembers the way Luffy got after his duel with Usopp in Water Seven; how he withdrew from his nakama, kept a trained eye on the space in front of him; seeing, but not really looking. A situation gone too far out of his control–one of the few things Luffy consistently loathes. So it’s truly no wonder he’s retreating into himself now. The heaviness is of a different nature, and Sanji doesn’t know how to lift it. 

* * *

_On the right side of Luffy’s lower back, cutting across his hip. That’s where they burn him._

_The brand is a crimson circle, three spikes above and one underneath. Slave traders, Sanji concludes nauseously. They want to turn the most free-spirited person on the Grand Line into a stranger’s plaything. He doesn’t want to imagine it; his captain bound in chains, forced to tail behind some arrogant noble like a dog._

_Luffy screams–of course he screams, his skin is burning off–and the cook has to hold his tongue from doing the same. Gruesome and abrupt, the newspaper boasting Ace’s lifeless body flashes before Sanji’s eyes. The smell of sizzling flesh, the contortion of muscle; Sanji wonders if Luffy has a mind to be as disturbed by that affiliation as he is. Before he perfected Diable Jambe, it was a painful technique, but never once had he burned himself seriously. And further back in time, at Baratie, Sanji carelessly charred his fingers on a skillet. But that’s nothing like this._

_These strangers brand Luffy with intention to alter the formation of his skin forever. Sanji decides–selfishly–that his captain has gotten enough scars. He hollers until his voice cracks. Until his throat aches._

Damn you. Damn you all. 

_Sanji can’t understand the unfairness of this, why his captain must bear all of the pain. Why have the scales tipped in Sanji’s favor? Or rather, the more pressing question: Why is he not standing in Luffy’s place? Then he kicks himself–desperately guilty and ashamed–for not realizing it sooner._

_Luffy. It’s always Luffy._

* * *

They’re not wearing their typical pompous attire, but the way they speak ascertains a noble status. _Celestial Dragons,_ Sanji thinks fiercely, mind flashing back to Saobody. Luffy’s rage for Hatchan; a victory that turned into a loss. The two men’s voices are obnoxious and nasally, like they have clothespins clinching their nostrils, and one of them raves on and on about his cousin who was punched in the face by Straw Hat Luffy. 

Realization is nauseating. 

_Is that what this is about?_ Sanji wonders, too weary to voice himself. _Revenge?_

The nobles don’t even address Luffy face-to-face, referring to him as an object, as if they know they can get away with whatever they’re planning. Or maybe they’ve never once heard the word _no_ before, and that deluded them to think they’re free to enslave whomever they want. They grab Luffy by the hair, ignoring his strained protests, and he collapses in the center of the room like a ragdoll, the top of his head facing Sanji’s cell. He looks so, so small compared to the wide walls surrounding them. 

Sanji’s vocal protests are ignored as they carelessly rip off Luffy’s clothes; his shorts that look too big on him now, the yellow sash loose around his waist. They’re like wolves consuming a hunt, salivating with lust, and the same expression the raven wore at Enies Lobby has resurfaced. Inability to control his own body; the fear that accompanies the helplessness. With the nobles’ arms outstretched, grins and grimaces full of desire, Luffy seems like he already knows where this is going, but his resignation is quickly replaced with horror when his and Sanji’s eyes meet. It feels like it’s been decades since they properly saw each other. 

The cook thinks he hears Luffy mutter something in that protective tone he reserves only for his crew, something that sounds like: _No, not here…_ and his blood runs cold. Sanji had thought, foolishly, that his captain might be spared something like this. But all of it was right there, wasn’t it? The bruises, the blood, and that damned silence. 

As the Celestial Dragons use his sash as a makeshift gag, Luffy looks like he’d rather be anywhere else on Earth. Sanji wants to tell him it’s all right for so many reasons, but the guilt and panic knot up his tongue, and he can’t pick one for the life of him should his captain ask why. The taller noble chats aimlessly with his counterpart as he presses down against the slave brand on Luffy’s hip, still new, the skin raw and blood-crusted. His shoulders tremble as he painstakingly shifts his chained hands to cover his face. Sanji can still see the curve of his nose, the crescent scar on his left cheek. It reminds him of Enies Lobby again; Robin-chan, the look of despair on her face. Tears, blood, and humiliation. 

Sanji wants to kill them. Slowly. 

“What an ugly scar,” the shorter noble remarks, hands trailing over Luffy’s chest, words dripping like poison, and Sanji desperately rattles the iron bars. 

“Don’t say another word, you bastards! Shit, just let him go!” 

“I heard he got it at Marineford. Right after that bastard son of Gol D. Roger burned up. What a stupid brat, thinking he could rebel against the divine World Government. No wonder he couldn’t save his brother.”

Luffy clenches his fists as the insults persist exponentially yet offers no retaliation. Their words are noticeably getting under his skin, prodding a thinly-scabbed wound that hasn’t quite healed yet. Twenty four months; one hundred and four weeks; Seven hundred and thirty days. Either way, two years is not long enough to mend the scar of grief inside Luffy. Heartache stemming from loss can last lifetimes without ever fading. Bolted to the back of Sanji’s mind is the image of a polite, amiable older brother; Fire Fist Ace, leaving his otouto in their care. Luffy, with his hat over his heart, for the entire world to see. Luffy who saved him. Luffy who’s saving him. 

An abyss yawns over the ceiling, a black hole, and pieces of Luffy are plunged into the shadows. He’s caving inward, the grief and pain sinking into his heart until it gives out, with no sound more grandiose than a whimper. Luffy is balancing on a decrepit wire of self-preservation, and Sanji is too far away to lend a shoulder for support. He can do nothing but dig his fingernails into his palms, being made undone in his struggle against the rising dread and alarm, as they violate his captain. 

Time runs slowly, as slow as tree sap, honey, molasses. Sanji distracts himself with those ingredients, listing off his recipes like a mantra. Maple syrup, glazed taffy, gingerbread, licorice, buttercream. Without his permission, Luffy emerges from the week prior, bouncing around the cook’s shoulders as he works. 

* * *

_“Oi, Sanji! Let me help.”_

_“Baka,” he drawls, stretching out the vowels as he releases a breathful of smoke. “You’ll get in the way.”_

_Luffy frowns at him, doleful eyes sparkling in a way that leaves Sanji wanting his grave. He pinches two fingers between his brow, gracefully flipping a pan in the other, and sighs._

_“Set the table. If there’s a single chip on any of these plates…”_

_“Yosh! Leave it to me,” Luffy grins._

* * *

There are no crescendos, nothing to indicate that Luffy has finally buried himself. Then it happens in a blink, a half-second, when he shuts his damp eyelids. Because when he opens them again, there’s no hope left, just an onerous glaze of despair that makes Sanji’s hands tremble with worry. It contradicts everything he’s seen in his captain, but all of this is new, isn’t it? A caustic kind of newness. A different fight, one neither crew nor captain can win. 

When one of them drives into Luffy’s mouth, his eyelids shut with a finality that speaks volumes. The nobles show forethought with this torture of theirs, they move with a purpose Sanji can’t understand, doesn’t _want_ to understand. They don’t seem to care that the raven is already on the verge of death, gagging at the taste of them, desperate for air he’s not currently getting. 

_Are they trying to kill him like this?_

Maybe it’s been their sick plan all along to make Sanji endure the sight of his captain suffering, only to end his life in such a brutish manner. And if that is their plan, they have succeeded. Because it hurts. It hurts more than being stranded with Zeff for weeks and weeks and weeks, slowly starving to death. It hurts more than being called a failure his entire childhood, being locked up and beaten. After not a single scrap of food for seven days straight, Sanji can see how thin Luffy has gotten over the past week. He wants to cook something exclusive for his captain, something memorable, just like he did after Whole Cake Island. A thank you. An apology. A meal that tastes like the words, _I will never leave again._

And then it’s over. 

The nobles leave as quickly as they arrived, but not before one of them leans down and whispers intently into Luffy’s ear. When there’s no response, they slam his head into the ground for good measure and saunter out of the prison, cackling like hyenas. 

Sanji’s white-knuckle grip on the iron bars doesn’t cease as he stares into the darkness. But with staring comes looking, and looking comes observing. Luffy is in his sight, tinted in blood and bruises, evidence of the nobles spattered across his body, dripping between his thighs and off his pale, chapped lips. Sanji’s captain, who’s trembling behind his handcuffs, hiding from everyone in the world. The cook’s sight blurs, mixing the reds, the purples, and the whites into one horrific mess. 

* * *

_“Oi, cook! Care to join us? You’ll be the cook on our pirate ship!”_

* * *

Sanji bursts into silent, laden tears. 

“Luffy…” 

He chews on a wall of anguish until the taste of iron fills his mouth.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit…” 

When the rapids don’t cease, Sanji slams his forehead against the bars. His skull trembles. It’s loud. Immeasurable. No one tells him to stop. 

_What kind of a friend am I? Luffy is right there..._

It doesn’t take long for Sanji to notice that his chest is still. Too still. _Not breathing_ kind of still. There’s no way he’s going to let his captain die like this. He’s not going to let Luffy’s last memory be of pain and despair and the failure of his nakama. Sanji’s words come flowing out, stuttering over the rocks and banks in his esophagus. Tactfulness and elegance abandoned, his voice comes out a mess, cracking on every syllable, shaking like a leaf in a typhoon. 

“Oi! L–Luffy! Let me know you’re alive!” 

It’s all Sanji can think to say, because if he knows any of his captain’s weaknesses, it’s that the nineteen-year-old can’t refuse his crew a single damn thing. A finger twitches. His chest resumes its rise and fall. The blond exhales harshly, lungs burning through the silence. Now he truly can’t think of a single shitty thing to say, chest heaving in huge, gulping sobs, the grief accumulating like a nebulous cloud overhead. Sanji wonders if he’s hallucinating when his and Luffy’s eyes meet together in a blurry, ramshackle line. Instantly, he sees how his captain–rapidly, messily–tries to pull the loose strings of a facade together, blinking away the pain and humiliation like a speck of dust in his eye. As if he’s not within an inch of his life. 

“Don’t,” Sanji chides, startling himself. He quickly gulps down a dry lump in his throat. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

That seems to be the final battering ram against the wall Luffy has put up in defense. A waterfall erupts down the mulberry ridges of his face, voice cracking like rubble in a landslide. He looks so unbelievably small for the insurmountable strength he possesses. 

“San...ji...” 

The cook doesn’t blink, despite his vision being painfully salty. 

“I’m here, Luffy.” 

“I c–can’t get out of this...” Luffy’s lower lip trembles, his body jolting with sobs. He grits out the sentence as if he regrets every word, as if he isn’t sure what he’s saying is what he should be saying at all. “Th’ handcuffs…” 

_Help me_ , Sanji hears instead. His captain grimaces at the floor like his mouth has just mutinied against his body. 

“I know. I know, Luffy. I’ll get us out of here,” the cook promises tightly, foolishly. It’s the only thing he can think to do when there’s nothing else he _can_ do. Reassurance is something Luffy doesn’t normally seek out, but damn _normal_ right now, damn the Celestial Dragons, and damn himself for not being stronger. Damn his shaky hands. 

Luffy groans lowly as he tries to shift his torso, the sash sliding off his neck and onto the floor. Sanji’s gaze falls upon the concave at his ribs. He recognizes that fetal position from his own share of starvation, but quickly notes how the stunted movement can’t only be from that. Those Celestial bastards had been pushing up against him–they must have weighed three times more than Luffy, which would have crushed a normal human’s ribs. Catching him off guard, the scene assaults Sanji’s mind again, every detail revisited. The sounds of skin on skin; sharp laughter mixing with the cook’s hoarse protests; his captain choking down the pain. 

“‘M sorry, Sanji,” Luffy whispers deliriously, an opaque tear running down his cheek. “Sorry y–you saw all that.” 

Sanji resists the urge to slam his head into the bars until they break. His entire body feels like it’s rigged to explode, but he levels his voice amidst the rage and grief; an illusion of control.

“Luffy. Don’t say another word.” 

“San–” 

The raven erupts in a fit of coughs. Alarm burns through Sanji’s chest like a bonfire, and he watches helplessly as his captain chokes. He instinctively lunges an arm out through the bars. _Too far, too far… Damn it all!_ Through a mist of pain, Luffy manages to flip himself onto his stomach and hack up a clot of blood. He takes a moment to breathe, deliriously gazing at the spatter of red by his knees. When the silence lingers, Sanji wonders if his captain has given up trying to speak–

“Those… those guys said they’re taking me to Mariejois.”

Sanji releases his grip on the bars, hands numbly dropping to the floor. The sight before him blurs profoundly. Luffy becomes a pale smudge in his periphery, and the inky darkness spreads about like a leviathan, its limbs mutating to fit the shape of the prison. His tongue–which feels subversively detached from his mouth–finally moves, voice breathless and muffled. 

“What?” 

_No more harm can come to Luffy. I’ve failed him enough already._

“You’ll have an opening tomorrow morning to escape. I can steal one of the keys when… when they…” Luffy trails off, lip curling bitterly. It’s an expression Sanji never wants to see on his captain’s face again, but he has enough experience to know that Luffy’s determination is stubbornly immortal, passing human capability and even further than that. Still, there’s no way his captain can survive any more of this. He _will_ die.

Sanji grinds his teeth together, furious. “Like hell! Luffy, I won’t just–”

“Captain’s orders. This is your only chance to get out of here. Save yourself, Sanji. Don’t w–worry about me.” 

The raven slowly inhales the musty prison air, like he’s treasuring the last thing he and Sanji will share in his lifetime. A realization strikes like a blow to the gut. _Luffy knows. He knows he can’t get out of this. He’s not overestimating his own strength or miscalculating how impregnable our prison is. We’ve lost this fight. And that’s why he wants me to escape without him._

“You… you…” Sanji struggles, vision blurring hotly. “You can’t even stand up, Luffy. I’m not leaving.”

Luffy shoots him a lachrymose grin. To the cook’s devastation, it doesn’t look forced. “You can rescue me later. I won’t die,” he vows, like it’s that easy. But dying is the one thing that comes effortlessly to humans. Sanji thinks of freckles and flames and a newspaper article, feeling helpless again. He leans his head against the cool metal of his cell, gently this time, voice wrecked. 

“Shithead… How can you say that? 

Luffy furrows his brow, looks up with those eyes his cook can’t endure. “Sanji, please…” 

_Please..._

Whether Sanji wants him to or not, his captain is going to give him an escape. The moment Luffy steps foot into Mariejois, the capital of the World Government itself, his nakama’s arms won’t be long enough to reach him. It’ll be impossible to find him there, and even more impossible to surpass all of the enemies that occupy the Holy Land. It’s like the Gate of Justice on an entirely different level; no one comes out once they’re forced in. Truly no escape is conceivable to a Devil Fruit user who’s alone, enslaved, and bound in Kairoseki.

If those handcuffs remain, Luffy’s body will be too drained to heal his wounds; he could die with the snap of some licentious noble’s fingers. But Sanji knows his captain will try to survive for as long as possible–he’ll endure anything to eventually see his nakama again. So that means rolling with the punches, that means kneeling before the Divine Population, that means the recession of freedom. The future Pirate King, the man with all the freedom in the world, impelled to a life of slavery. Grief crashes inside of Sanji, flooding through his eyelids, the weight atop his shoulders so heavy he’s obliged to slouch. 

“I’m sorry, Luffy, I’m sorry.” 

On the floor across the room, Luffy glances up at him with solemn eyes. The whisper glides like a stray feather through the bars, chock-full of candor and conviction, and it’s both awful and astonishing that the recipient of such devotion is the cook himself. 

“S’not your fault.”

Sanji settles his hands in his lap, shuts his tear-stained eyes, and sighs deeply. The memory is still fragmented, but the shame that accompanied his capture the cook is certain of. 

“It is. All of this. I don’t know if you remember, but you rushed ahead because I got caught...”

“Ah. You’re right. I don’t remember that,” Luffy replies, blinking owlishly. 

“...so don’t try and defend my shitty honor.” 

With his bare feet, the raven pushes against the floor, trying to budge his bound arms. After a few tries, he’s able to laboriously drag the Kairoseki handcuffs and crawl toward Sanji. He winces in pain with every step, knees shaking violently as streams of blood drip down his thighs. 

“Oi, don’t strain yourself,” Sanji scolds halfheartedly, still distracted by the battered state of Luffy’s body. 

_He’s covered in sweat from walking a few meters, and he thinks he can survive Mariejois in the same condition?_

When Luffy reaches the bars, he drops onto his stomach and shakily reaches out an arm. _This is the closest we’ve been in a week,_ the cook notes breathlessly, cupping Luffy’s hand in his own. The raven heaves for a moment, the exhaustion catching up to him, and squeezes back, warm and forgiving.

“You–you're my nakama. Try... and stop me.” 

Sanji wants to come closer, to touch Luffy with more than just his hands. He wants to gather up those wounded limbs and envelop his captain like a remedial blanket, offering what the Vinsmoke family never did. It’s quite easy to imagine in its current unattainability; unruly black hair pressing against Sanji’s chin as he inhales the scent of the distant sea. Idly brushing a thumb over the back of Luffy’s hand, careful of the mangled skin around his cracked nails, a gentleness the cook rarely grants anyone straying from the fairer sex emerges. 

“You gave yourself up, didn’t you?” Sanji says softly, blinking back tears. “Made a selfish deal with those shitty nobles. Who asked you to do that?”

The _for me,_ goes unsaid. 

His eyes fall upon Luffy’s hollow cheekbones, the blood mottled over his wilting skin, his unnaturally cold hands. Soon there won’t be anything left for Sanji to hold onto. His captain is wasting away right before his eyes, and there’s nothing more he can do than watch. When light snoring begins its course through the prison, Sanji allows himself to crumble, quiet and weary.

“Oi, Luffy… 

“...what am I supposed to do if you die?”


	2. Chapter 2

“We—We have to get Luffy! They’re taking him to Mariejois!”

Chopper transforms into his human hybrid form, locking an arm around the cook’s shoulders. 

“Sanji, deep breaths! You need treatment!” 

Thrashing as much as his body will allow, panic seizing him full-force, Sanji hollers in frustration. He has to save his captain from the living hell that’s awaiting him in Mariejois. 

_“Save yourself, Sanji. Don’t w–worry about me.”_

“They’re going to _kill_ him!” 

His voice comes out desperately hoarse. The foreign tone would almost surprise him if he weren’t so delirious, and it’s obviously unnerving his crewmates because most of them are staring like he just grew a second head. Chopper’s clearly holding back tears in the corners of his eyes, and a few more of his crewmates step in to circle around the cook with varying levels of concern. 

“Stay still, please, Sanji!”

Nami clenches her fists, amber eyes blown wide. “Did he say Mariejois?” 

Zoro jogs up to Chopper and Sanji, his arm coated in an obsidian layer of Haki. He narrows his eyes at the cook and asks, “Should I knock him out?”

Usopp smacks the green-haired swordsman and shouts, “Of course not, you numbskull!”

“Just hold him down while I give him a sedative, please!”

Sanji’s eyes widen. “Damn it! I don’t need a sedative! Chopper, if you do that I will never forgive you!”

The reindeer freezes and lets his hoof fall to his side. He turns his wide, contrite eyes to Zoro, who’s got Sanji by the shoulders. The swordsman sighs after a moment of silent consideration and releases his grip. Usopp kneels down next to the cook, his concerned expression mingling with a cautious sheen of sweat. 

“Sanji, please. Let Chopper treat you. We can sort everything out afterward.”

The cook sighs, dragging a hand down his face, fingernails scraping his chapped skin. The profound anxiety reminds him of his desperate, repetitive need for a smoke.

“You don’t understand,” he says, hating himself. 

_I don’t want you to understand. You don’t want this burden._

Zoro stares down at him through a single emerald eye, voice soft and remarkably worried. It’s the type of posture the swordsman only divulges to their captain. With a single flick of his eye to the object in Sanji’s hands, he has already gauged the situation. 

“Cook. Tell us later.”

The weight inside Sanji’s heart sinks him further into the floor, and he wonders if Sunny can feel it too. This unbeatable heaviness. His grip on Luffy’s straw hat doesn’t falter even as his knees give out. The cook doesn’t know why he feels the need to protect it even when he’s surrounded by his nakama. He trusts them more than he trusts himself. 

“Our jackass captain did something...” 

Sanji doesn’t finish. He can’t. 

_Luffy did something selfish, and reckless, and so, so brave._

* * *

Sanji’s first meal in eight days. 

He’s gone longer without food–almost to the point of death, almost to the point of killing that damn geezer, but this hurts more in so many ways. Nobody told the cook who prepared his meal, just shepherded him into the infirmary like a lost lamb, but his own recipe is unmistakable. Sanji feels nauseous that he’s about to eat while Luffy is starving to death somewhere, but he won’t let a single scrap go to waste. He’s too tired to even think about pride. 

_I am the cook of this ship. I should be the one preparing meals,_ a ghost of himself murmurs. 

It’s black bean soup, topped with cream cheese and sliced avocados. A quiet food–the dish of a requiem–as to not interrupt the grief and mourning in all quarters. Like their captain has already died. When Sanji takes his first careful sip, it has no flavor on his tongue. A few hefty tears mix into the broth; he feels sick to his stomach. 

Sanji was told that before he escaped, the rest of the Straw Hats had been preparing a break-in. If they had just arrived a day sooner, Luffy would be in the infirmary alongside him. Injured, malnourished, and shaken, but nonetheless _safe_. Still, there’s no use in dwelling over what could have been. 

Luffy is gone. 

There’s a light knock on the infirmary door. Sanji doesn’t answer, too caught up in his thoughts to notice Nami step inside. His haki almost fails to detect the object thrown his way. He shakily catches it in one hand. A pack of cigarettes. The ginger navigator quietly settles at the end of his bed. 

_Don’t tell Chopper,_ her eyes advise. 

“You know, Sanji-kun...” she begins coolly, twirling a long strand of hair around her finger. 

“Yes?” The cook answers dumbly, helplessly. That’s all he’s been feeling lately. Like a powerless fool. 

“You’re not alone here.” 

Her words pierce through him like a bullet, authentic and unexpected. It revives the dormant sadness inside Sanji’s heart, a sadness he’s been trying hard to suppress, and his wounds are suddenly splitting and cracking like brittle soil in an earthquake. He trips over his tongue, pushing down his unwanted, bottomless emotions. They’re too strong. They will have to emerge eventually, but _when_ and _where_ is of Sanji’s making. He won’t let his crew see him behaving so weakly. The Straw Hats need their wits about them if they want to save Luffy. 

“A–Ah, Nami-san. Sorry, I–”

“No.”

The navigator lifts herself off his bed, face shining with something fierce. She crosses her arms and lets her lips tighten into a thin, straight line. Sanji gulps over his protruding Adam’s apple. 

“Think back a few weeks, Sanji-kun,” she orders matter-of-factly. 

_A few weeks? That would be when..._

“We sailed through enemy territory and fought one of the Sweet Generals, but you still didn’t understand _why_. Now listen to me: We will sail after Luffy and get him back,” she says, and then points a thumb at her chest. “I’m this ship’s navigator.” 

Sanji curls his hands into the bedsheets. His heart aches. 

“Nami-san...”

“But! You will not forget what happened with Big Mom,” she asserts. “You’re not alone anymore. You have us. Don’t underestimate your crewmates, Sanji-kun.” 

The Straw Hat navigator smiles brightly, confidently, and Sanji can’t help but believe her. 

* * *

It was only a matter of time before someone inquired about what happened during the week of his and Luffy’s capture. Sanji had been prepared to answer. He had rehearsed what to say; calmly, logically. But in the present, when the question is actually spoken aloud, Sanji finds himself unable to find the words he so carefully organized in his mind. Words from hell spoken in the Sunny Go are bound to feel like heresy, or at least some form of taboo. But he has to say them. Get it over with. 

“I don’t know how to... where to...” The blond trails off uselessly. Should he start at the beginning? Or just list off what injuries he saw? Recounting all of it only makes him fear Luffy’s condition at the moment. Unknown. Terrifying. 

_He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead..._ A part of his mind screams. His more hopeful side counters that mantra with its own. 

_It’s Luffy. He won’t die. He promised._

“You don’t have to tell me everything. I just... I want to be prepared.”

_For when we find him,_ Sanji affixes. _To be prepared for the awful state his body must be in right now._

“He was too thin. They fed us nothing, barely let us drink,” Sanji begins, and hates how that’s the tip of the iceberg; that the starvation and dehydration aren’t all there is to it. That Luffy being dragged further down into hell isn’t just an illusion of truth, and it really is as bad as it seems. 

“Luffy’s metabolism is outrageous, so he became really weak after a few days.”

Chopper nods solemnly. “I can imagine.”

_I don’t want you to. Please don’t imagine it._

“They tortured him. I–I didn’t see any of it,” he continues, the strength of the lie bitter in Sanji’s mouth. “Luffy was really shaken up every time they brought him back. He barely spoke to me. Just kept returning with more and more injuries each evening.” 

The cook’s body trembles fiercely, hoping that Chopper only sees the rage, not the broken shards of his heart that lie beneath.

“Those shitty Celestial Dragons... They’re unforgivable!” 

The little reindeer stares down at the floor, hat shadowing his round eyes. A faint sniffle. Before Sanji is able to process it, Chopper is launching toward him in a mess of snot and tears. 

“I’m sorry we weren’t there, Sanji! I’m so sorry! If we were quicker, Luffy would be with us and you wouldn’t look so sad…” Chopper cries. “I promise we’ll get him back! I promise!” 

The cook grins weakly, patting the blue-nosed reindeer on the head. “You’re the second person today to promise me that.”

_They’re not just empty words,_ Sanji assures himself. 

_I’m coming for you, Luffy. Hold on a little longer._

* * *

“I’ve brought you a gift, Charlos.” 

“Is that so? What is it _-eh_?”

“See for yourself, my cousin.”

A boot digs into Luffy’s back. He’s lax against the chains, cheek pressing uncomfortably into the floor. 

“Lift your face, slave.” 

He warily does as he’s told. 

_I promised Sanji. I will survive._

The fatigue has been relentlessly nailing through Luffy’s skin since… _forever,_ it feels like. As he squints through the blurry room, the noble looming in front of him seizes his attention. Not that there’s a heart of gold inside the noble’s dango-shaped body, nor anything remotely un-punchable about his personality; the Celestial Dragon reeks of arrogance and cruelty, foundations built upon the corpses of those he’s made his victims. There’s nothing remotely honorable about the guy. 

_He looks like an idiot,_ is what Luffy first thought when he was introduced, if an explosive collar and scabbed-over slave brand can be considered an introduction. But that reaction struck something familiar in his memory, like he’d thought the same thing before at another place and time. There’s something off about the man’s face–the odd structure of his left cheekbone. Like an unnatural indent replaced with metal. Luffy’s fist itches. 

“You…!”

Saint Charlos–Luffy now recalls from Saobody–glooms down at him with a clash between disgust and satisfaction. The man’s cousin roughly kicks him in the ribs, hitting an already blackened area. The pirate coughs weakly, elbows trembling as he tries to keep himself upright; as upright as possible from his hands and knees. 

“Insolence! You will refer to Saint Charlos as _Master_ or _Charlos-sama!”_

The same nasally voice echoes through his mind, writhing through his entire body like a baleful serpent. Ghostly fingers claw at his hips, the hot brand on his skin. And then–waves of shame crash down on him, each larger and more towering than the last. Meeting Sanji’s eyes; looking away. 

_“What an ugly scar.”_

The assault on his ribs doesn’t let up, and Luffy desperately wants to crawl away from the noble’s invasive reach. No matter how far the pirate has already fallen, he never wants to experience what happened in that prison again. The sour memories of his cell remind him of Amazon Lily; slamming his forehead into as many rocks as it takes until he stops reliving the past. He would be tempted to bite off his tongue if it meant he’d be free from this. But his nakama wouldn’t forgive him. He promised he’d be back, didn’t he?

Even if he succeeded in biting off his tongue, Luffy has a feeling the Celestial Dragons wouldn’t let him die so easily. Mariejois is undoubtedly home to the most skilled doctors in the world. Those who are worthy enough to serve the Gods face to face. None of them are as good as Chopper, though. Luffy wishes the blue-nosed reindeer were here to treat him. He hasn’t taken a good look at himself in what feels like years. Have his bruises healed at all? Right now his stomach sort of feels like one giant bruise, but Luffy knows that if he’s offered any food now–despite how famished he is–it won’t get halfway down his throat before he vomits. 

Charlos presses a hand against his own disformed cheek, eyes glinting a voracious shade of crimson. 

“I’ve dreamt of this day…” the noble leers. “Cousin?”

“Yes, Charlos?”

“What should I call him?”

His cousin claps his hands together like an insidious merchant, lips curling into a razor-sharp crescent. The smile of a human trafficker. “That’s up to you. Slave, perhaps? Whore? Maybe his commoner name, Luffy.” 

The raven flinches slightly, curling his hands into fists. An arm, a leg, an eye; he would barter anything for his freedom. For his name to not be used so carelessly. 

The man smiles amusedly. “You see?”

Charlos hasn’t moved an inch, too overwhelmed by his own rancor and satisfaction. “Yes, yes. That’s far more rewarding. I’ll make him hate the sound of his own name!” 

Luffy wills back the tears that have been aching to fall since… since he can’t remember. His concept of time has been muddled by the overwhelming pain and starvation. Has he been in Mariejois for a week? A month? No… that can’t be right. 

_The reason I’m here… what was it?_ The pirate searches his mind. _I can’t remember…_

His head is shoved back down to the nobles’ feet. Two sharp grins anchor him in place. 

“Now, Straw Hat Luffy. Clean the floor... with your tongue.” 

_Ah. That’s it._

_I remember now._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again... y'all who have posted comments deserve a medal for encouraging me to keep writing this!

The government officials at Mariejois call it a tragedy. 

Everyone else celebrates a liberation. 

Whether it’s deemed a victory or a defeat by people across the sea, the names Monkey D. Luffy and Fisher Tiger now undoubtedly share the same pedestal. 

* * *

An officer bursts into the room. 

“Did you hear? The pirate Straw Hat Luffy has just infiltrated the heart of the World Government, Mariejois!”

Coby practically rockets out of his seat, knees banging loudly against the underside of his desk. Lunch goes flying skyward, which is probably for the better depending on what other news he’s about to receive. There’s too much going on in his mind to know where to even _start_ thinking. Helmeppo’s reaction is a bit more composed, his jaw almost cracking the floor open with how far it drops. 

He’s dumbstruck for a moment, then overcome with latent relief. _So Luffy-san is alive and safe after all,_ Coby wants to sigh a bit dreamily, but his better judgement stops him. The officer raises an eyebrow at his and Helmeppo’s silence, then turns to close the door with a meek, _Sorry for intruding!_

“Wait, don’t leave,” Coby smiles breathlessly. “Please rest your legs and tell me everything you know.” 

* * *

“Luffy, you fool,” Garp mutters, grimacing at the News Coo like he already knows what he’s about to read. 

“Do you think Luffy-san has escaped already, Garp-san?” Coby asks. 

The bulky man blinks slowly, something heavy falling on his shoulders. “I do wonder,” he says in a way that leaves Coby with even more questions than before. 

Helmeppo crosses his arms tightly. “You don’t think… he went there on purpose.” 

Coby furrows his eyebrows at the floor. He doesn’t want to think about what that means. 

_Luffy-san… you’re all right, aren’t you?_

“Ahh, you brats have gotten more observant. As expected of you,” Garp says, scratching his neck, and the rare compliment is absently tucked away for a better time. They slide into an uncomfortably pensive silence. 

Coby decides to finally whisper into the lion’s mouth.

“I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I sincerely hope he’s safe.” 

Helmeppo nods in solemn agreement. Garp doesn’t reprimand them, just sighs and tosses the newspaper into his trash can. Then he lets out an abrupt, hearty laugh. 

“My reckless grandson is anything but!”

* * *

It’s plastered everywhere. 

_ The Fifth Emperor makes a move! Straw Hat Luffy, notorious pirate and persistent rebel against the World Government, has caused an uproar in the Holy Land.  _

The details are still panning out, and the Navy is characteristically withholding important information about the event, but it’s clear that this is no laughing matter. It’s a bigger scene than Enies Lobby of two years ago. Nowadays, each thing Straw Hat Luffy does is even more audacious than the last.

“The Red Line, Mariejois, filled with World Nobles whom Luffy hates… why would he stray so far from his route through the Grand Line?” 

That is what Sabo asked himself when he heard the news. As someone born into a noble family, he understands the desire for revenge. Still, Luffy’s motivation has never been anything but pure. He’s too kindhearted to persistently illicit harm. Even after Ace’s death, Sabo seldom heard his little brother mention Blackbeard or Akainu. Surely he wants to beat them up, but he won’t stray from his dream to do so. 

Sabo’s doubt and concern tripled when news broke of the Straw Hat crew’s last known location. Which was  _ not _ in Mariejois with their captain. The revolutionary had a choice to make: meet up with Luffy’s crew, or go after him alone. Since meeting them in Dressrosa, Sabo already knew what the right thing to do was. 

They’re good people. Good pirates, which may seem like an oxymoron to some. But above all else, they care for Luffy, which means they’ll do whatever it takes to get him back. Sabo needs those kind of allies behind him. 

_ Will Dragon help me with this?  _ Sabo wonders.  _ The Reverie is coming up soon after all...  _

Mariejois is the epicenter of so much evil in the world–hubris, greed, and overwhelming corruption. It reminds Sabo so much of the Goa Kingdom that it makes him sick. But Luffy is there. Luffy has been taken there. 

“I know my brother,” he told Koala. “This isn’t like him.”

“So what now?”

Sabo clenched his fists tightly. 

“I want to save him.”

* * *

“Captain! Captain! Straw Hat did something reckless again!” Bepo screams.

Trafalgar Law shuts his eyes, the newspaper tucked close beside him. He honestly wants to chuck it into the sea and sail as far away as possible. Forget about it. Maybe urge his mind to believe in Straw-ya, even if Mariejois is one of the most heavily guarded government cities on Earth. Regardless, the newspaper remains at his side, burning a hole through him, and Law can already sense the impending questions from his crew as they trail behind his Mink navigator. 

“Calm down. I already know.”

“What was he doing there anyway, Captain?” asks Penguin, followed by a curious nod from Shachi. 

Out of the corner of Law’s eye, Jean Bart grips the fabric of his coat covering the left side of his chest. “That kid… he’s got guts. I feel indebted to him once again. He managed to turn Mariejois on its head.” 

“He’s crazy,” a few other crewmates mutter. 

“Should we even be associated with that guy after the uproar he’s causing right now?”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, _that guy_ causes an uproar wherever he goes.”

Law digs his fingernails into Kikoku. His crew catches on quickly and settles down. A long silence passes as they wait for him to speak. 

“Straw-ya is not the kind of person you want as an enemy. Take a good look at your crewmates. We’re wanted pirates. We live a dangerous life on the sea. If you want to know what I think about Straw-ya’s recent actions, there’s your answer.”

Shachi rubs his neck, a bit of concern in his tone. “He disappeared two weeks ago, I thought…” 

“Then he suddenly turns up in Mariejois,” Jean Bart adds. “I don’t want to think about the implications of that.” 

Law lifts himself onto his feet, jaw rigidly stuck in place. 

_Neither do I._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chaps in one day? More likely than you'd think. Thank you all for leaving comments, they fuel me.

“We need to talk, Cook.” 

Zoro finds him where he always is. The air is rich with sugar and spice, and Sanji huddles around one of his work-in-progress recipes. Like he has been for the past three hours. Every minute away from Luffy is a minute Sanji regrets. 

Cinnamon bread has always been the cook’s comfort food, even if he can’t bring himself to eat a single bite of it now. Perfecting the ingredient ratios quickly became frustrating, as nowadays his patience is thin and focus gone elsewhere. Sanji has been sitting like this, cigarette growing cold between his tense fingertips, staring into his recipe book as he slowly sinks into a darker scene. A place he doesn’t want to return to, but the memories claw out relentlessly. Taking and taking and taking. 

The words on the page are no longer _milk, eggs,_ and _sugar,_ they have rather conjoined in a mass of clustered letters that spell out cruel failure. The cinnamon smells disgustingly bitter, and the powdered sugar appears like cyanide. Who would want such an amature meal?

Sanji knows who. At this point, speaking the name hurts too much.

The green-haired swordsman approaches with purpose, and he dreads it, dreads the questions before they’re even asked. 

“Sanji.” 

The cook forces his gaze from his ruined book, focuses on the door peeking out behind Zoro’s shoulders. An exit, an escape. So close in distance, so far with the immovable wall that is the Straw Hat’s first-mate standing in the way. Sanji feels his stomach tighten with poorly-concealed anger. 

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Sanji drawls, blinking slowly. 

Zoro’s eye flicks from the recipe book, to the ruined bread, to Sanji’s slouched shoulders. The cook can’t tell if he looks unimpressed. Doesn’t really care if he’s not. Decides that if there is anyone to be angry at on this damn ship, it’s Zoro. 

Sanji lifts himself off his stool, glaring fiercely at the swordsman. The voice that rips itself from his throat feels foreign. 

“ _What?_ ” he growls. “You say we need to talk?”

The swordsman quietly observes him, expression stone-still, infuriating. Sanji takes his silence as an invitation.

“How’s it feel, vice-captain? That shitty pedestal you’re standing on,” Sanji spits, more enraged than he’s ever been. “You think you’re so much better.”

Zoro does not move. Sanji stumbles forward and digs a hand into the swordsman’s shirt. 

“Nothing to say for yourself? Go ahead, blame me.”

Sanji feels a single green eye pierce through his soul, somehow reading all the secrets he’s buried deep. He wants to crawl out of his skin. Erase himself. He brings forth his other hand, shakes Zoro as much as his strength allows it, but the man’s feet are planted firmly in the floor. It’s shameful how weak Sanji is now, but a week of starvation will do that to a person. 

“I know you’re pissed. So why don’t you admit it, shithead? Tell me I don’t belong in this crew,” Sanji grits out, trying and failing to keep his voice from cracking. “For losing Lu–for losing _him_. Our captain.” 

When Zoro sighs, it’s almost inaudible. A short breath out of his nose. 

Sanji’s anger drains away as fast as it came on, and he hastily releases his grip on Zoro’s shirt. The swordsman almost seems surprised at that, like he expected more. 

_Sorry to disappoint._

Sanji rests his arms on the counter, back to Zoro as his head lolls in exhaustion. 

“I know why you’re here, Zoro. But from the look on your face, you already know what happened.”

As much as Sanji loathes to admit it, Zoro is probably one of the most observant people he’s ever met. Immeasurably dense, but with a quiet layer of perceptiveness underneath. Sanji turns his head back, meeting the swordsman’s eye with his own tired stare. He can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed at the tears threatening to spill. Sanji’s lower lip trembles, and he tries to make Zoro understand with the few words he has left. 

“So just… don’t make me say it.” 

Zoro’s chin dips slowly in the cook’s periphery. Is he nodding? Is it anger? Disappointment?

“Luffy wouldn’t want this.” 

The name cuts through Sanji like a freshly sharpened Santoku bōchō. He ducks his head so Zoro can’t look at his face, a mess of quickly resurfacing grief and regret. He swallows painfully, furrows his eyebrows. 

“Just get out.” 

Zoro catches himself, rephrases. “He would never blame you.”

His voice is steady as always. A part of Sanji wants to latch onto it, to escape the recurrent fits of drowning that come with remembrance. To anchor himself to the confidence–no, the loyalty in Zoro’s unwavering baritone. 

“‘It’s not your fault,’” Sanji repeats. “That’s what he said to me. Half-dead, and our idiot captain still wouldn’t blame me.” 

Zoro leans up against the opposite counter, crossing his arms. 

“And?” 

Sanji shrugs in affronted confusion, refusing to move from his hunched spot at the sink. When Zoro doesn’t respond, the cook’s lip twitches downward. “What?” 

“If Luffy doesn’t blame you, why should any of us? Why should _you?_ ” 

Sanji stills, and there is a long stretch of silence between them. His hands have stopped shaking. He inhales through his nose slowly–the refreshing scent of sugar and spice. Luffy’s words echo through the kitchen, widening the cook’s vision, parting the stormy seas like a prophet. 

When Sanji finally turns around, Zoro is gone. 

* * *

The open ocean is vast. Too vast. 

Robin used to admire the lengths it took to sail from one edge of the world to another. Now, it seems burdensome. Far away from the sun, and the Sunny Go becomes shrouded in shadows. 

The early morning wind after Sanji’s rescue is too brisk, too wild, so Robin retreats to the library to read. It’s a shallow distraction from the depths of worry writhing inside her. They are en route to Mariejois; a grievous delay of the Straw Hat crew’s never ending adventure, because the air is no longer of excitement, and their path is no longer an open road to freedom. 

In fact, they sail toward the pulsing, evil center of enslavement and corruption. A place Robin knows her captain does not belong. It twisted something awful inside of her to imagine Luffy in chains; a knot that has since not unwinded, and surely will remain until they rescue their raven-haired captain. 

It is not long before Robin loses herself in old, dusty memories. Chasing a safe haven she thought could never exist for a woman like herself. Living on with an iron will to die until a boy in a straw hat crossed her path.

The red horizon breaches the watery surface around six o’clock. Robin hears Sanji make his way to the kitchens at six-thirty, Nami and Usopp at seven, and the rest of her nakama lumber along soon afterward. 

It is now, Robin realizes, that she has not slept much at all. 

* * *

Breakfast was a quiet ordeal until the News Coo arrived. 

Sanji exchanged polite conversation with Robin and Nami, albeit with less enthusiasm than he used to. Eyes trained on him always, but the cook found himself comforted by it. After a week of being ignored by his captors, and occasionally even Luffy, it was a gentle and warm thing to be seen. 

And if anyone saw the extra bottle of sake Sanji placed on Zoro’s side of the table, nothing was said about it. Nami announced the status of their route–they were on a steady course to Mariejois, soon to arrive in a few days. 

Unsurprisingly, none of the Straw Hats had ever expressed desire to go to the Holy Land. Maybe in another time, if slavery and immorality were not rampant in the land of the so-called gods, it would be a suitable pitstop. But there was one goal, one person, that meant the world to everyone on the Sunny Go. And he was there in Mariejois. 

When breakfast wrapped up, the crew began to move in their own directions, scattering to their chosen corners of privacy. But before they could, the shadow of a bird crossed the lawn deck. Zoro was the first to leap down from the crow’s nest to intimidate the poor News Coo. It had been so terrified of the swordsman that it flapped its wings in terror and took off in the sky, leaving behind one free-of-charge crumpled newspaper. 

Now, the crew huddles around the loud headline, words that belong to them, and them alone. 

“The next Fisher Tiger?” Franky gapes. “Does that mean Luffy busted outta there?” 

“It doesn’t say,” Chopper frowns sadly, but his eyes gleam with hope. 

Usopp glances at Sanji, his lingering grasp on the cook’s forearm. “But it does mean he’s alive.”

The cook swallows. His nakama face him; looks of determination, loyalty, hope. Things Sanji knows he doesn’t deserve, but he takes them gratefully, nodding at Usopp, who grins back. 

“Of course he is,” Zoro says firmly. The glint in his eye could put the Devil to shame. 

A smile, full of relief, stretches across Nami’s face. “Wipe that scary look off your face, you dork.” 

Zoro raises an eyebrow in her direction. Brook loops a bony arm around the swordsman, who almost immediately pushes it away in indignation. 

“Yo-ho-ho! We have all been worried sick about Luffy-san, so it’s a relief to hear that he’s still himself.”

“Causing a ruckus, you mean?” Nami corrects. 

“Precisely,” Robin replies lightheartedly. 

Chopper leaps onto Franky’s back, thrusting a hoof out seaward. “Yosha! Onward to Mariejois!” 

Even though their direction leads to darkness, the Straw Hats cheer. 

Their sun is soon to return.


End file.
